One more off the list…

DSCN1026

Brooke mentioned a few weeks ago that we hadn’t made it to a Blues game yet while living here in St. Louis. We’ve attended many Cardinals games in our years here, and one Rams game, but the Blues had eluded us so far. Really, neither of us have ever had any interest in hockey, so it wasn’t exactly a priority. Still, it’s one of those things that people tell us is fun, so we wanted to go at some point.

Well, as it happened, the Graduate Student Association at SLU (of which I’m President) was hosting a social event where we could get student rate tickets. Due to high cheapness, we got both or tickets for $30 (total), and that included a hot dog and a soda for each of us (about a $10 value). So yeah, a great deal! The seats weren’t anything spectacular, but the view was surprisingly good. It doesn’t seem like there’s a bad seat in that rink, honestly. The seats we had were something like $35 normally, so those “nosebleed” seats are still a far cry from the over $60 “nosebleed” seats at a Rams game.

A hockey game, it seems, is also tremendously more entertaining than an NFL game, as well. The action was constant, there were some fights breaking out, and overall, the speed and pace of the game was faster. Of course, the scoring doesn’t happen all that often, but with all the shots toward the net, it still gave us much to pay attention to.

Anyway, that’s another event we can cross off the list. We had a good time, but left early. Apparently, we should have stayed longer, as the Blues ended up winning (!!!!).

Maybe next time! Believe you me, I’m much more likely to go to an NHL game in the future than any NFL game.

What to do, what to do…..

We’ve been trying to see and do the things we haven’t seen and done yet in the St. Louis area in the next couple of months, as you can see from some of the pictures on the sidebar, since we’ll hopefully be leaving next spring. We’ve been to the Botanical Gardens, revisited the zoo, eaten at Broadway Oyster Bar, and plan to go to Cahokia Mounds and a Blues game. What else should we make sure to do, for all you St. Louisans (or those of you who have been here and been touristy!)???

Hop in the City

Brooke and I went to Cabin Fever at the Schlafly Bottleworks back in January and had an excellent time. The festival features 20+ beers to taste for $20. The beers were pretty malty, and pretty high in alcohol content, but they all tasted great. The weather was shockingly good and they had some fire pits set up, so we had a great time.

Every fall, however, an even larger festival is held at the Schlafly Tap Room called Hop in the City. This one features 40+ beers for the tasting for $30. While Cabin Fever could only hold, maybe a few hundred people…but Hop in the City had a thousand. I met up with some folks this time, as Brooke is not drinking much these days. I took note of all the beers I tried while I was there.  The list is 22 types long, so I won’t list them all here (but each “taste” was around 3 oz…add that up and I “only” had 4-5 pints during the 4 hour period I was there)…however this is a list of some of my favorites.

  • American IPA – This was their Festival Beer for 2009, described as “exploding with hop flavor and aroma” with “enough of a malt backbone to stand up to the intense bitterness.”
  • Spiced Porter – A “robust Porter with orange peel and coriander for a fruity, roasty flavor.”
  • English Brown – “A moderately sweet, malty brown ale with low hop bitterness and a gentle nutty character, like its creators.”
  • Export IPA – “Light amber in color, this medium-bodied India Pale Ale is highly hopped with English hops in both aroma and bitterness, with the maltiness still quite apparent.”
  • Irish Extra Stout – A “full-bodied stout” that “has the bitterness of roasted barley with flaked barley added for a smooth finish.”

Believe you me, if we would still be here next Fall, I’d go again. Sadly, however, it’ll probably be my last Hop in the City for awhile.

Opa!

Every year since we moved to St. Louis, we’ve said we should go to St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church in the Central West End for their annual Labor Day Greek Festival. Since this is hopefully the last year we’ll be in the area, we went ahead and made plans to go this weekend. Unfortunately, it rained ALL day Saturday, so we went after church today.
We took a tour of the church and listened to a couple of dudes talk about their faith and the symbols throughout the church. Even though I have been to Greece for the sole purpose of understanding the religions that have been important throughout their history, I really didn’t have a clear understanding of what makes Greek Orthodoxy all that different from Catholicism, except the priests’ pointy beards and funny hats (turns out that the priest at St. Nicholas looked and dressed a lot like Pastor Paul at St. Andrews Lutheran, not the priests I encountered in Greece…). However, there are a lot of differences, most that Andy and I sat there and nodded our heads in agreement to, like not using philosophy to define parts of their faith, just going by the scriptures and acts of Christ, not praying to or through saints (in fact, in every depiction of Mary, Jesus MUST also be present), and not having a hierarchy of leadership (no pope, or one person in charge who has some sort of “divine” connection). Of course, there are lots of parts that I don’t agree with, such as the role (or lack thereof) of women, having 7 sacraments (we only have 2), and the whole saint thing in general.
Anyway, we really went for the food, so after the tour and listening to their choir “chant,” we waited in line for about 35 minutes for some gyros, salad, Greek fries (not as good as the ones in Greece, unfortunately), and baklava. The gyros were great and the salad as good as you’re going to get when they’re serving thousands of people in a tent outside. We were too full for the baklava, so brought it home for later. It looks really good and fresh, though, unlike others I’ve had at local restaurants (my baklava standards are pretty high!).
So, in memory of the soon to be deceased Reading Rainbow, here’s my pitch: If you live in St. Louis and have never been to the Greek Festival, you should definitely go. They’ll be there until 9 tonight and from 11-8 tomorrow!

3 posts in one day???

…it must be a record! I’m just giving you something to do while Andy and I are gone for a few days. Here’s how we spent our evening:
phc

And you thought golf was boring…

So, Brooke and I inherited two free tix to the Rams game today. It was the first time either of us had ever been to an NFL game, so we were all about “the experience,” especially as we’ve both lived close to NFL teams for years and had never actually gone to one. Kickoff was at noon, and as we were getting out of church just before then, we were a bit late to the game. Either way, we hung out through the end of the third quarter. At the time, it was 7 – 30…so…not so good…

It ended 13-34.

Now, I’ve been to high school and college football games…but neither are as boring as an NFL game, apparently. Seriously, I think I missed the commercials during all the timeouts! The thing that really has me confused is how people can think baseball is boring when there’s so much downtime in an NFL game. I’m pretty sure, at least for the nearly 3 quarters we were there, the ball was not moving longer than it was moving. At least in baseball, there are short pauses throughout, but there is a game to watch for the vast majority of the time!

Anyway, we’re glad we went to the game…and didn’t pay anything for it… Which brings up another point: we were up at the top of the Dome and those seats would have cost $44. $44?!? That’s two tickets for a Cardinal’s game that is a). more entertaining, and b). better seats!

We’ll probably still try and hit up a Blues hockey game, as neither of us have ever been to an NHL game, either…but we may put that off until we get to a few more baseball games to wash away the sour taste in our mouths…

And because it’s amusing…

Katie visited Ted Drewes while she was in town recently…and it’s on YouTube… She doesn’t know what Crab Rangoon is… And we also get to find out why they “call it a concrete”…

A good weekend for one and all…

…well, hopefully… 😛

So yeah, Yanela was out of town at church this weekend (our Worship Leader), so I got to run the show this weekend…and as I got to be in charge, I got to recruit the people I wanted to…and Mom and Kristen got the call (Dad, you would have too, but you don’t play the recorder all that well…sorry! ;-)). Brooke played bass (of course), I played guitar, Mom played piano and Kristen sang. We did some old songs and some new ones, all of which seemed to turn out pretty well! Thanks, family!!

Otherwise, Mom and Dad left on Sunday (after a lovely brunch at Norton’s…great place…we should go again sometime…), and then Kristen, Brooke and I tried going to Fast Eddie’s in Alton, IL. This place, apparently, Alton Brown went to in his “Feasting on Asphalt” show on the Food Network. Well, they’ve got really cheap eats and a nifty biker atmosphere (where I don’t exactly fit in, needless to say…). And, they were rather packed. As in, not a seat available in the house. And a long line for food. And lines of people watching for empty tables. We ended up leaving, unfortunately, so we’ll have to try going back some other time. We ended up just going to Joanie’s (after we tried going to Ferraro’s Pizza…which wasn’t open, dammit…).

We went to the zoo the next morning, saw the penguins (w00t!), and then Kristen went home… And today, of course, we’re back to the real world…

Guess I’d better prepare my lecture for this Friday… I’ve gotta shape young minds!

Edit: Oh yeah, and by the way, the Kansas City Royals have a better record than 9 other teams in Major League Baseball. Just wanted to throw that out there…. 😛

Ranting and raving…

So yeah, Brooke and I have been having some “issues” with our air conditioning unit. Perhaps we weren’t nicer to it earlier in the year…I dunno… Either way, it is being rather uncooperative…

A few weeks ago, we noticed that the air being pushed around wasn’t all that cold… I walked outside and saw that the A/C unit wasn’t even on, but the fan inside still was. We came to find out that it, apparently, had tripped the breaker. The A/C guy (that our landlords promptly called in) said that the A/C unit itself was fine, but it was probably pulling too much current for the 20 A circuit installed in the breaker – we should put in a 30 A circuit instead (like the clothes dryer has).

So, we didn’t have any problems again, really, until this past weekend. On Sunday, we had this happen two times or so, and then another two times overnight (once around 2:00 am and then Brooke had to trip it again when she got up at 7:30 am). We called BSB (our landlords) again and they sent out an A/C person (who said the same thing as the last guy), and an electrician was called out. This person switched out the 20 A circuit for the 30 A and it worked just peachy keen…

…until about 6:00 pm. I was about to go outside and get picked up by Brooke to go to dinner when I noticed it was getting warmer again in the apartment, and again, the fan was still running. This time, however, the breaker wasn’t tripped. I went downstairs to the A/C unit and the thing was running (i.e. you could feel it vibrating as it normally would…), but the fan in the unit itself wasn’t spinning. It was also rather hot to touch (as compared with the A/C unit next to it for the apartment below us). I turned off the system and went to dinner, came back a few hours later, and turned it back on – it worked again!

…but then the same thing happened a little later, so we just left the A/C off all night. We pulled the futon mattress downstairs and turned some fans on us, but the humidity didn’t make sleeping easy. I think I got 4 hours of sleep, but Brooke fared a bit better…

So yeah, now I’m at work (which is air conditioned, thankfully…) awaiting a call from BSB again to tell me what they’re going to do. Edie and Sam are still at home, and I’ve got water and fans turned onto their typical sleeping areas to hopefully keep them as comfortable as possible.

It’s just Murphy’s Law, I guess, that the A/C would go out during the hottest week of the year. I guess it’s better than the power outage last year, when we didn’t even have fans to cool us down or keep the refrigerator/freezer running, but still…it’s damned uncomfortable to sleep in!

Hopefully something gets worked out shortly…otherwise, I think we’ll go nuts…and/or more nuts than we already are…

Update #1: As of 3:00 pm on Wednesday, BSB has decided to spring for a new A/C unit for us. The guy came back today multiple times, and on the third time, found problems with the motor and fan. Hopefully, the new unit will be installed tomorrow or Friday at the absolute latest.

Update #2: Our new A/C unit was installed today (Thursday), and it’s taking forever to cool our place down from 105 F to 80 F…but it’s a start… At least we get TV and internet again!

Of vacations and weddings…

So, we went up to Wisconsin/Minnesota for a little vacation last week, largely because we needed to be in St. Paul, MN on Saturday for Adam Waudby’s wedding. Brooke and I left last Tuesday for Hannibal so we could leave Edie with Brooke’s parents (thanks!) and then continued up to Madeline Island, on Lake Superior, off the shore of Bayfield, WI…and it was a 12 hour drive…a lovely way to spend my 25th birthday, but whatever… We got up there and took a ferry to reach the island, arriving in the 7:00 pm hour or so… We camped at Big Bay State Park, about 7 mi from the ferry landing (big island!), which is nice and far from anything resembling a tourist trap. We made some awesome steaks that night (there’s a picture included at my Google Photos site) and were well-rested for the next day…

Thursday was spent largely exploring the island, walking on the “boardwalk” (as in, a walkway made of boards…clever name, eh?), and then kayaking out in the lake…where I got a lovely sunburn, despite the 70 F weather and partial cloudiness… It got rather cold that night (45 F or so), even though the high was supposed to be ~90 F with a low around 60 F. Moral of the story: never trust the forecast, ’cause if you’re going to northern Wisconsin, it’ll be cold anyway.

Friday we went to Minneapolis-St. Paul for the wedding rehearsal (another 5 hr drive) and a brief stop at the Mall of America. Saturday was spent at the wedding, of course (congrats, kids!), and then we went to Ikea and the Mall (again…) with Mom and Dad. We got a coffee table, a TV stand (of sorts), a wine rack, and a few other small items at Ikea (thankfully, all of which fit in the car with everything else we had…) and didn’t get too much at the Mall.

Now, briefly…the idea of this Mall… For those that haven’t been there, it’s huge. It’s kinda like St. Louis Mills mall, but has four stories (only 3 with stores) and an amusement park (which was pretty impressive). The real downside is the store selection though, I think. As in, I saw at least 3 Starbucks’, 3 Caribou Coffee shops, 2 Claire’s, a two-story Old Navy, and 3 Lids’ hat shops. Now. If you’re going to the mall, do you really need that much coffee? What can you find at one Claire’s that isn’t at the other one (in the same building)? I guess that I was a bit underwhelmed, ’cause while they had plenty of shopping opportunities, it was either the same store multiple times, or all clothing stores… I saw one Radio Shack, no Best Buy/Circuit City, nothing that really interested me (personally). Then again, Mom and Brooke had a good time… 😛

Anyway, we got back Sunday night around 7:00 pm, after picking up Edie in Hannibal. It was a good trip, overall, and we came back pretty well rested and ready to go for work Monday morning…for the most part…

I’ve got pictures of the vacation up, as well as general wedding pictures from the weddings we’ve attended thus far this summer. Check ’em out if you’re curious…